Yandex invests a few million in delivery service aggregator Multiship

Yandex, Russia’s most popular search engine and biggest internet company, has announced a multi-million dollar deal with e-commerce logistics company Multiship. Yandex has paid $1 million to acquire Multiship’s software, and will invest another few million to further develop the company.

MultiShip allows Russian online stores to arrange deliveries to more than 40,000 Russian towns and cities using any of its partner delivery services, which include Axiomus, B2Cpl, Boxberry, CDEK, Maxima Express, PickPoint, Qiwi Post and Pony Express.

The software team from MultiShip will now join the Russian internet giant, but the company will remain independent. The additional ‘few million’ invested by Yandex in the project will go towards creating new services, extending its client base and developing its cooperation with other Russian logistics companies.

Yandex hopes that its partnership with MultiShip will benefit its Yandex.Market service, through which more than 13,000 Russian retailers sell their products. This year Yandex has promised to make it possible to make purchases through the service without requiring users to visit the retailer’s site.

Yandex.Market Director Alexey Avdey explained that

“Russia’s online retail market is growing, principally, thanks to the regions, and the biggest obstacle to further growth is logistics. Through our investment in MultiShip we want to set up a convenient communications system between online retailers and residents of any Russian city. We also consider MultiShip a potential partner that could deliver items for stores connected to Yandex.Market.”